Question

Which statement best characterizes the consensus on the status of Freud's theory of

personality?

a. His theory is generally correct, with minor exceptions.

b. He is considered a fraud and his ideas are considered worthless.

c. Some of his ideas have been widely accepted and others have been abandoned.

d. It has been impossible to evaluate any of Freud's ideas through empirical scrutiny.

Answer 1

The consensus on Freud's theory of personality is that some of his ideas have been widely accepted while others have been abandoned. His work regarding the unconscious mind was pioneering, though his theories faced criticism for not being empirically falsifiable.

Step-by-step explanation:

Which statement best characterizes the consensus on the status of Freud's theory of personality? The consensus is that c. Some of his ideas have been widely accepted and others have been abandoned.

While most of Freud's ideas have not found support in modern research, his contributions to the field of psychology cannot be disregarded. Freud was pivotal in studying and theorizing the workings of the unconscious mind, and this aspect of his work remains influential. Freud's theory presented three components of personality—the id, ego, and superego—and suggested that personality develops through psychosexual stages. Despite these contributions, a major criticism of Freud's theories is that they are not falsifiable, which means that empirical observations cannot necessarily prove them right or wrong.

Freud's followers and neo-Freudians modified his ideas, emphasizing less on sexual drives and more on social and cultural influences on personality. Even though certain premises of Freud have been rejected by contemporary researchers, his theories paved the way for the development of psychoanalysis and impacted the therapeutic practice.